The Croatian prosecutorial authorities have received anonymous charges against the wartime mayor and head of the crisis management team in the northwestern town of Virovitica, Ante Kristo, the wartime Virovitica police chief, Antun Troha and a crisis management team member, Djuro Decak, suspected, in that anonymous report, of embezzlement of money collected for the purchase of arms in 1991, the head of the Virovitica municipal office of the Chief State Prosecutor, Romeo Waller, said on Wednesday.
Waller declined to say whether the report also accuses Josip Djakic, a Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) member of parliament.
"The anonymous report has been filed. It is being processed, and I cannot say anything more in compliance with Article 36 of the Law on State Prosecution," Waller said.
He added that in case of a decision by the local prosecutorial authorities to issue an indictment against the above-mentioned men, the public would be timely informed about that.
This June, a group of local residents who called themselves "Croatian Veterans of Virovitica-Podravina County" filed the report claiming that at the crisis management team's session, Kristo, Troha, Decak and Djakic had made a decision on launching a campaign of collecting funds for the purchase of weapons.
The report alleges that local companies paid certain sums for that purpose and that 500,000 German marks were raised then.
The report urges the prosecutorial authorities to investigate where the money had ended up given that there had been sufficient amounts of arms and that there had been no need for additional purchase.
After the news about criminal charges, pressed by that group, came to the media, MP Djakic said that at the time relevant to the accusations he had been no office-holder and could not wield any influence on the developments in the town.
In the meantime, Djakic lodged a libel suit against the Virovitica.net portal's editor Gordan Gazdek, who broke the news about the anonymous charges, and is seeking 100,000 kuna in damages for suffering caused to him and his family by the smearing of his reputation.
